I’m thrilled about today’s interview. Shiza Shahid co-founded The Malala Fund along with the youngest Nobel-Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. I’m sure you already know this, but just in case, Malala was the young girl in Pakistan who was shot in the head on her school bus by the Taliban for going to school, but she survived and became internationally recognized. So Shiza, who I speak to in this interview, was one of Malala’s early mentors. While in college, Shiza started a secret summer camp for girls in Pakistan, which is also her home country. Today, Shiza is a venture capital investor and many other things. Named one of Time's "30 Under 30 People Changing the World" and Forbes "30 Under 30 - Social Entrepreneurs," she’s also host of the USA Today news show "ASPIREist," which activates millennials to have a positive impact.

In this episode, we talk about why empowering women around the world is so important and what Shiza sees as global trends as she travels to different continents. As a fellow immigrant, she shares how culture helped her shift perspectives, and what it means to reclaim your identity when you grow up cross-culturally.

Subscribe and listen to the full episode here (you must subscribe to receive latest episode).

Highlighted Excerpt:

Majo: You do so much. How do you stay grounded? How do you avoid overwhelm or do you just feel overwhelmed?

Shiza: How do I avoid overwhelm? I think perhaps by not comparing myself. I think a lot of the overwhelm comes from comparison. Now when we do good things we have to put it on Instagram and count how many likes it got, and I think a lot of that comparison causes dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Because if you go and truly help someone, the way that will make you feel will give you so much satisfaction, it will calm the fatigue and help with the overwhelm, so as long as you don’t go to that place of you know, “Is this good enough?Am I good enough?” and allow the satisfaction of doing your work become overshadowed by the comparison, which I think we’re constantly in the middle of particularly here in the West. I was in Pakistan for a while, and I realized that I didn’t buy anything for weeks, and I was barely on social media, and I came back to the U.S. and started getting hit by all these ads and all these things I felt I needed to buy, and information about other people doing other things.

Majo: When you came back you started noticing that you were comparing?

Shiza: Absolutely. I think that over here, there’s a lot of that comparison, even when you’re doing so called social impact work, you’re still comparing –

Majo: Right. Like, who’s doing more social impact work.

Shiza: Right. I think avoiding that. Getting outside this place which can really do that to you, and focusing on direct impact.

Show Notes:

Shiza’s parents and upbringing in Pakistan [3:20]

On volunteering as a teenager in women’s prisons and her passionate activism as a young woman [5:36]

Applying to college in the U.S. on a whim and her decision to go to Stanford where she was first exposed to technology and entrepreneurship, but still feeling connected to help women and girls back in Pakistan [6:58]

On co-founding and building The Malala Fund at age 22 and leaving the safe, predictable path [21:00]

Witnessing Malala become the first child to win The Nobel Peace Prize and how it shifted stereotypes about what courage looks like [26:00]

On the polarization of technology, tech utopianism, and how social media creates a divide and leads to a rise in extremism, as well as the need for a representative group of people making decisions [28:00]

On being a global citizen and how that perspective-shifting encourages entrepreneurship [32:20]

The patterns she sees across the world, particularly around the false facts and news, as well as untapped opportunities such as supporting women in computer science in the Middle East [36:00]

How to deal with feelings of overwhelm and unhappiness in a culture of consumerism and comparison [40:00]

On reclaiming identity having grown up cross-culturally [43:00]

REFERENCES:

Learn more about Robin Berzin and Parsley Health here.

A BIG THANK YOU & SHOUT OUT TO OUR BADASS PATRONS ESPECIALLY:

Brigid Cabry Nelson leads Lettershop, an award-winning creative studio that serves a wide range of clients—from boutique retailers to large corporations—approaching each and every project with vigor and enthusiasm. Learn more about Brigid and her work here.

Bianca Wendt, an award-winning art director and graphic designer based in San Francisco and London. Learn more about Bianca and her work here.

Pssst....don't forget to follow me on Instagram for more goodies, inspiration, and updates when episodes drop – yay!

MUSIC:

Today, I speak with Dr. Robin Berzin. She’s the doctor, founder, and CEO of a wellness and medical practic, Parsley Health, that takes a whole mind-body approach to your health. Robin is on a mission to heal and reinvent American healthcare when less than 4% of CEOs in the healthcare space are female. She’s a real badass with a medical degree from Columbia University who has raised millions of dollars in venture capital. In this episode, we talk about how she dealt with being lost and confused after college, having a baby while fundraising for her startup, and how to build your creative confidence as a woman.

Subscribe and listen to the full episode here (you must subscribe to receive latest episode).

Highlighted Excerpt:

Majo: How did your yoga practice help you align into your purpose?

Robin: It taught me to listen. It taught me to listen to myself. I think I was someone who was a little bit trapped in her head and I think a lot of us live with a bit of a concrete wall between our bodies and our heads and we don’t really pay attention to what’s happening in our bodies, and we live in our minds and we live in the past; we live in the future and we’re never present. And if you’re somebody who is like a grades getter, go-getter, and an overachiever in any way, whether that’s in sports or academics, you’re rewarded constantly for that, right?

It’s reinforced in our educational system and it’s certainly been in mine growing up in Baltimore and going into this all-girls school that was very academically oriented and also athletically oriented. I wasn’t good at the athletics part but I was pretty good at the academics part.

For me, yoga was this moment of literally just waking up to right now and I realized I had this huge concrete wall between my head and my body. And then in many ways, there’s kind of low-grade abusing myself living on really crappy food, not really exercising, partying at night, hating my job, being in a crappy relationship with a crappy boyfriend at the time, and I think yoga was just this kind of stillness. And then I started listening; and then I started looking back to undergrad and back in my life and starting asking the questions, “What do I want to do? What do I care about? What is interesting to me and how do I want to spend my time?”

Show Notes:

On childhood, her early days as a “neat freak” and “good girl.” [01:55]

Working as a paralegal and stumbling on a yoga studio that would change her life. [04:42]

Losing her grandmother to colon cancer and her growing interest in medicine; winning the award for a paper in complimentary medicine. [09:17]

Her amazing experience working with Dr. Oz and Oprah’s team. [20:20]

Reaching out to Dr. Oz to get the job. [23:09]

How she learned to fundraise and how she managed after giving birth to her son. [26:04]

Her thoughts on starting a company – don’t overthink it, just do it. [32:02]

What she reclaimed during her heroine’s journey. [33:42]

REFERENCES:

A BIG THANK YOU & SHOUT OUT TO OUR BADASS PATRONS ESPECIALLY:

Brigid Cabry Nelson leads Lettershop, an award-winning creative studio that serves a wide range of clients—from boutique retailers to large corporations—approaching each and every project with vigor and enthusiasm. Learn more about Brigid and her work here.

Bianca Wendt, an award-winning art director and graphic designer based in San Francisco and London. Learn more about Bianca and her work here.

Pssst....don't forget to follow me on Instagram for more goodies, inspiration, and updates when episodes drop – yay!

I am so honored to bring to you this conversation with a personal heroine of mine: Esther Perel. Esther is truly a thought leader in the space, with a perspective on modern relationships that is refreshingly original, insightful, and pretty un-American. Recently, she’s been stretching the bounds of her work beyond the bedroom, which is the focus of this episode. Can we apply something like couple's therapy to co-workers and how easily does it translate? In this episode, Esther shares how to bring the relational intelligence from our romantic lives (things like trust, empathy, vulnerability, etc) into our most difficult, stressful work relationships and creative collaborations, especially in the context of patriarchy and the #MeToo movement.

Esther’s work practically saved my relationship with my husband before we got married– and her work really helped us see what sustains desire between two people over the long-term. Her celebrated TED talks have garnered more than 20 million views and her international bestselling book Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence became a global phenomenon translated into 25 languages. Her newest book is the New York Times bestseller The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. Esther is also an executive producer and host of the popular podcast called Where Should We Begin?

I know you will find this conversation fascinating and applicable to your life.

Highlighted Excerpt 1:

Majo: It’s huge. Can you share a story, maybe the first time you did co-founder therapy?

Esther: First, let me draw a bridge. When you work with the subject of relationships, what determines it is not the specific content. In a family at home, we may have a certain argument around childcare. You are over-functioning, I am under-functioning. You feel you’re doing way too much, I feel that there is nothing I can do that is good enough so why bother anyway. The more you do, the less I do. The less I do, the more responsible and resentment you have. Transpose this. In a company, it’s not about childcare. But let’s say, you’ve been one who has been looking for funding, and going to talk with investors and taking on the big meetings, and you feel that I feel that you kind of show up when it’s a big deal, but for the rest I let you do most of the stuff, I do less, the less I do, the more I think you’re a control freak, etc, and that we should revisit our equity share. The dynamic of over-functioning and under-functioning is a relational dynamic. You can apply it to all contexts. Once you start to think patterns and form, rather than content, you can take your relational expertise to other places.

Highlighted Excerpt 2:

Esther: The patriarchy doesn’t just hurt women.

Majo: Right.

Esther: It’s a system that doesn’t do well by a lot of people, everybody included. So, that notion requires honesty on both sides. Women have drunk the same Kool-aid. They’ve internalized the same ideas about what is a man and what man ought to be, and they do have concepts of real man. I often say, “emasculated” only exists in the masculine, not in the feminine.

Majo: Why do you say that?

Esther: Because there is an idea that [as a man], you are born a woman and you become a man. That all over the world, there have been rituals in all the civilizations where men have to go and make their transition into manhood, to prove that they are real men, to shed the femininity inside of them, the boy inside of them, the weak inside of them...that masculinity therefore is the fragile identity that constantly needs to prove itself and constantly is tested. It doesn’t exist on its own as a solid entity. We need to talk about male power, but I think it’s far more interesting to talk about males feeling of powerlessness.” It’s that feeling of powerlessness turns into control over others. It’s not the power itself.

Show Notes

Esther shares about her childhood as a bold and extroverted girl, her experience as an immigrant and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, and getting by on the goodwill of people willing to help her. [2:48]

Esther turns the table on Majo and asks why she felt pressured to focus on her career over relationships for so long. Plus, how Esther became a “disciple of people” and learned to navigate uncertainty while writing her first book. [7:43]

Bringing her expertise to the context of work: Esther shares her insights as a cross-cultural therapist, and the big shift she’s seeing toward reliance on relational intelligence as the core of company success. [19:59]

Why do 65% of startups fail? Co-founder breakups. Esther discusses the deep, intimate, and often turbulent relationship between company founders. [26:10]

Majo shares two true scenarios with Esther for advice on how to navigate relationships. Scenario 1: A woman being constantly triggered by her male manager who refuses to listen to her advice. [30:51]

Scenario 2: A woman feeling disempowered by a male CEO who favors his own ideas over hers. [38:24]

On difficult conversations, what’s missing from the #MeToo movement, and how we reshape and redefine relational thinking through communication (not policies or rules). [43:23]

“Patriarchy doesn’t just hurt women.” On polarized systems, masculine vs feminine, and the honesty required on both sides. [46:30]

From the bedroom to the boardroom – more resources on translating the personal to the professional. [49:39]

Newsflash: You don’t need the perfect space or time to meditate. I have found that the belief that you need the perfect conditions creates another barrier to starting and keeping a practice. And though there are many approaches to meditation, a totally acceptable way to meditate is weaving your practice into small bite-size pieces throughout your workday. Because let’s face it, on some days, it can feel virtually impossible to sit quietly first thing in the morning. Our mind is running and we’re honestly excited about the day and ready to dive into work. On these days don’t force yourself to meditate! Find a way that works for you. You don’t have to be the perfect, enlightened yogi, but a mindful human trying to do good work in the world. So if you can’t meditate in big chunks, meditate in small ones. Here are three kinds of bite-size meditations to pepper throughout the day:

Phone booth or conference room meditation

Sure, it’s not sexy. And perhaps you’d rather meditate on a beach somewhere, but again, this is better than nothing. So go ahead, book that conference room for 10-15 minutes. Sneak into a booth, and breathe for 5 minutes, or 2 minutes, or 1 minute. If you don’t have a timer, how about 20 deep breaths? It’ll help you reset and dive back into the day.

Coffee or tea break meditation

Here’s the challenge: all you do is drink your beverage. You don’t look at your phone, or read your kindle, or talk to the cute barista. It’s a quiet moment to sit down and fully sip on your coffee or tea. Engage all your senses. Smell the aroma, admire the color, feel the temperature, the taste, feel the warm liquid cascade down into your belly. Be 100% mindful on your break. Slow down. You can do it. The world will not crumble, I promise.

Commuter meditation

What I like about the commuter meditation is that commuting happens twice a day, so if you anchor your practice to this behavior, you’ll meditate twice a day. It’s a great alternative to a podcast (or you can listen to your podcast after you meditate), as it will help you become more aware instead of simply taking in information and stimulating your mind (as the goal with meditation is to de-stimulate your mind). The most ideal situation is if you’re on a bus, subway, or a passenger in a car. Even if you’re driving, you can do a driving meditation, where you simply pay attention to your breathing and the sounds around you. Same goes with walking or biking.

The point is this: something is better than nothing. Instead of expecting the perfect meditation where you sit down on your cushion in front of a Buddha pond, imagine meditation as a thread you can weave into your workday in small, realistic ways.

In all three cases, reach for guided meditations, especially if you are new to meditation. My favorite tools and top apps have consistently been HeadSpace, SimpleHabit, and YogaGlo.

What do you think? Any other ways you like to meditate throughout your day? Shower meditation, anyone?

Have you ever been in a situation where someone has said or done something so freakin offensive or rude? Either online or in person. And you just stood there, your lips tightly sealed, thinking mmm...maybe someone else will say something. Well, according to today’s guest, Luvvie Ajayi, there is no someone else. The person you’ve been waiting for to speak up is you. Luvvie is an award-winning writer and 15-year blogging veteran known for her wit, and her take on pop culture, race, media, and technology.

In this episode, Luvvie and I explore her journey as an immigrant from Nigeria, assimilating into American culture, and reclaiming her roots in college, as well as through her work. We talk about the themes in her hilarious New York Times Best-selling book I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, about the ways the world and all of us can and must do better. My favorite part of the conversation was talking about what it means to be at truth-teller in today’s world of materialism, social media, culture and fame, and why it’s important that you step into that role now more than ever.

Subscribe and listen to the full episode here (you must subscribe to receive latest episode).

Highlighted Excerpt:

Majo: I want to shift gears and talk about this idea of truth-telling because it seems to be a core part of your work. From what I gauged from the book and the TED Talk is that you really see yourself as a truth-teller. At one point you say, “How I choose to affect change is by speaking up, by being a domino.” There are a lot of women who are probably listening who may feel shy or reserved or afraid to speak up. Just like, “I don’t know that I can call out this person or I can say this truth or I can share my story.” I’m curious like how you’ve worked with that or you know, how do you work with that edge?

Luvvie: It’s not always easy even for the person who’s always challenging other people to constantly be the main challenger. I think a lot of times, we expect other people to do this thing that we know we should do ourselves but then, we hide under the guise of shy. We’re like, “Oh, somebody else would just speak up about that.” No, a lot of times, the person we’re waiting for is us.

I always challenge people to take themselves out of their own comfort zone. Yeah, speaking up and being a truth-teller is not easy. It’s not comfortable. It’s going to scare you. You’ll be seen in a meeting and know you should speak up against the person who’s saying something that makes no sense or is kind of a slur but then we’ll sit there and think, “Well, I guess somebody else would challenge that person instead.” No, in those times, you have to ask yourself, what is the cost of your silence? What is it going to do if you do nothing?

What usually happens is whatever bad behavior’s been going on continues to go on. So the cost is that you keep things going the way they are and oftentimes, things aren’t going well. What if you spoke up and that actually changes something? I’m not saying every time you speak up, you’re going to change the world, change atmosphere, change minds. But it’s something that you can at least try, you know. And a lot of times, I find that the thing that we’re afraid to say, we’re not the only ones thinking it. There’s a bunch of people thinking of it but everybody’s afraid to say something. So nobody says nothing so it never gets said.

Oftentimes, I find that when I say something that is difficult that I’m like, “Ugh! This is going to be so hard,” and I say it, other people will be like, “Oh my god! I’m so glad somebody else said it. I totally agree!” But it’s like one person had to say it first before the choir could be like, “Yeah, we agree with her!” A lot of times, you have to be that person!

Show Notes:

On Luvvie’s childhood in Nigeria, their move to the U.S. when she was nine years old, and how she adjusted to American culture. Her name was different; her accent was different. [2:55]

Her choice of psychology as a major in college, why she dropped her lifelong dream of becoming a doctor, but why she also didn’t think she would make a good therapist. [7:29]

On her experience after college, going into marketing internships while figuring out what she really wanted to do, including starting her now-famous blog back in college. [8:36]

Luvvie’s journey in becoming the marketing coordinator of a non-profit while developing her blog as a hobby; winning an award for “Best Humor Blog” in 2009. [13:20]

On writing recaps for the show, Scandal, by Shonda Rhimes which eventually garnered her attention online and grew her fanbase. [15:49]

How she came up with the idea for her New York Times Bestseller “I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual.” [19:48]

On feminism: why a lot of people – especially women of color – have a hard time calling themselves feminists. [25:58]

Reclaiming what it looks like to be a creative: writing, speaking, running a business, and hosting the Rants and Randomness podcast, and why you should let your work evolve with you. [41:45]

Subscribe and listen to the full episode here (you must subscribe to receive latest episode).

DON'T HAVE APPLE PODCASTS?

Hi lady! I know, it's been a while since I've given you a personal update. A lot has happened. If we would have talked back in January though, I would have told you that I had a recurring fantasy of holding a lighter under my book proposal and setting the whole thing ablaze to watch it burn burn burn. It’s all I wanted to do. Burn the thing to a pulp. I had written papers which had been published in psych journals, grant proposals, a Masters thesis, but this was hands down the hardest thing I had done to date, because it demanded a kind of deep work and clarity of mind that was simply a grind. No other way to put it. In good girl fashion, I had written the original proposal like an academic paper and my agent kept nodding her head, “I’m sorry. It’s just not relatable enough,” she’d say. Too boring. She was right, the thing was far too boring. The ideas and structure were there, but I hadn’t quite breathed life into it yet.

It wasn’t until I had a conversation with a very gifted writer, who implored me to pour my personality into the work and have fun with it that the whole thing began to turn. Have fun! HAVE FUN!!? I want to burn this motherfucker down. But I took a deep breath and started again. This time from a playful voice that was somewhere deep within me. This time from a place of real fire, deep within my belly. I actually didn’t think about what my agent wanted, but how I could express more of my personality into the proposal. When my agent received the new version, she called me and said something along the lines of, “WOW, you really broke through something. You broke through your own good girl conditioning to really bring this out.” The very purpose of the book is to support women in reclaiming their power by overcoming their good girl mentality, so it was all very fitting. The potion we’re brewing is often the medicine we most need, amirite?

One of the central themes of book involves looking at our relationship to logic and pragmatism. So many of us feel safe in the world of logic. Logic equals safety. We can safely measure and weigh the world which allows us to control and predict it. And while I’m all for logic and love science, when taken to an extreme, I see so many women who can’t access their inner magic because of layers of logic. Logic is a kind of mask that protects us from being who we really are: emotional, feeling-based, creative, and soulful beings. In other words, powerful AF. I don’t want to write something that makes people THINK more and juggle more ideas in their already busy minds. I want to write something that makes people FEEL more, that stirs their hearts, that feels true in their bones, that brings them to tears, that creates the real kind of alchemy in the psyche that is required for real transformation. Period.

How about you, sister? Are you trying to get something out into the world? Here’s what I learned from landing the book deal that might support you in your process.

You need help

You can’t do it alone. I talk about this in my Creative Confidence playbook, one of the blocks to creative confidence is being overly independent. Sometimes, this is being controlling and thinking you are the only person who can do this right. Sometimes, it’s being too hesitant to ask for or receive help. Sometimes, it’s not really knowing how to collaborate. In order to land this deal, I needed the help of my fabulous agent and also other women who gave me their best guidance. I had the crucial help of that woman who looked at my proposal and said, “Where is the personality? Where’s the juice? This needs to be more you. This needs to be ‘voicier!’” I had built a team of cheerleaders, including my own husband, to help me bring this to the next level. From stylists to the guy who let me stay with him in Manhattan when I met with publishers, there were so many people there to support my growth and see me shine. Trust that you have yours too. You need help. You can’t accomplish your dream on your own. So, who’s on your team?

Your creative work has its own timing

In my mind, this baby was going to go out to publishers last Fall. And I thought what I had was good enough. But again, circling back to my agent, she really pushed me to take it further, and sensed that we weren’t really quite there yet, that we needed more time to bake some of the core, fundamental ideas. This at first felt offensive to me (my pride!) since I had already been working on it for six months before she came into the picture. But she was right, I was trying to shove an unrealistic timeline into a creative process that had its own needs and rhythm. I felt I was ready to jump into the deep end, even though the work wasn’t. Letting go of control was the big lesson here and surrendering to the process that needed to unfold. At the same time, I’m all about setting deadlines and re-setting them as needed. So, it’s a balance and a dance between structure and flow. What are you trying to force that has its own timing?

Break out of self-limiting beliefs

We all have a pretty fixed idea of what’s possible for ourselves. And it’s hard to imagine yourself doing something you aren’t currently doing. How could I, lil’ ol’ me, possibly land a book deal with a reputable publishing house? This of course is the voice of the inner critic which is trying to avoid us from taking risks, but even more deeply that that, it’s the voice of “impossibility” and lack of imagination, it’s the voice that doesn’t allow doors to open, keeping them sealed tight or completely out of view. I recommend Amber Rae’s book on this, Choose Wonder over Worry (also I recently interviewed her on the HEROINE podcast if you haven’t checked out that episode, it’s phenomenal). Dreaming matters. What are you not giving yourself permission to dream?

Follow moon cycles ‘cuz that shit works

I was amazed to see how much I could line up the creative work to align with moon cycles. When it was a full moon, I was taking more action. When it was a new moon, I was setting an intention and beginning a new phase. The book sold on the New Moon in Taurus – it was perfect. A great resource on this is Ezzie Spencer’s Lunar Abundance. Do you pay attention to moon cycles? How might you line up some of your goals with the cycles of the moon?

The nice cherry on top of all this learning is that I landed the book deal with HarperOne – my dream publisher!

Reply and let me know if you have questions or what you’re learning.

I’m excited to keep you in the loop about the book as I write and promo it. Also, I’m going to be doing some epic giveaways (of HarperOne books and their tarot card decks) in the next few weeks, so follow along on Instagram.

Today’s episode features writer, women’s advocate, and tech entrepreneur Kathryn Finney. Named one of the most influential women in tech by Inc Magazine, she’s the Founder and Managing Director of digitalundivided, which fosters economic growth by empowering black and latina women entrepreneurs.

Claudia Chan is a leadership expert, social entrepreneur, and founder of S.H.E. Summit, an annual conference that celebrates women’s leadership and gender equality. She’s also the author of the newly released book, This Is How We Rise.

Margaret Stewart has spent her career focusing on designing user experiences that change the world in fundamental ways. As the VP of Product Design at Facebook, and formerly at YouTube and Google, Margaret sees design as creativity in the service of others.

Hi lady! Hope you're well. Do you have a dream of starting a side business or project? Jessica, for example, was obsessed with making kombucha, a delicious fermented, pro-biotic tea that was good for your gut. She really wanted launch a line of her own kombucha, but could never seem to prioritize it in her life. Work, relationships, and family would get in the way. When we started working together, we created a timeline and certain steps for her getting it out into the world.

The problem? The label. Jessica wondered: What color would the label be? What size? What wording would it have on it? What was the logo? She was paralyzed with the infinite number of decisions she had to make about her new line. The deeper problem? She was terrified of getting it wrong.

This is a major obstacle to being a badass: overthinking and being precious. We all do it.

I have often been trapped in cycles of over-thinking my options. My strategies for gaining more clarity have been talking about it with people, asking for advice, researching zealously on the internet and in academic databases, and watching others as they do today what I want to do in the near future.

Though these are all forms of preparation, it slips into the unhealthy side: paralysis, procrastination, and distraction.

Just like Jessica, I would get so precious about what I was putting out into the world, as if it couldn't change, or evolve. As if it was the only way to do it. And this preciousness would stall me. Would stall me for days, weeks, and months.

But we don't get genuine clarity from sitting at home and seeking information from second-hand sources. We get clarity from putting something out there, seeing whether it resonates, and iterating.

It was helpful for Jessica and I to frame this initial launch as a kind of "beta" or "prototype" that would change in the future, so she didn't have to feel so much pressure to get it right this first time. The beautiful magic of timelines and deadlines is they invite us to make it happen whether we feel ready or not. They invite us to be brave.

In earning my Masters in Design, I had the opportunity to experience design thinking at the Stanford Design School — which has hugely informed my work with women today. Design thinking is a methodology that helps us get outside of our minds and actually test whether an idea will work. I love to encourage my clients to test and experiment their idea.

Here's what we wonder together:

How can we experiment and test your idea (or belief) in small ways?

How can we get real data from our environment, instead of spinning these ideas in our head?

How can we be less precious about this project in general?

This kind of thinking is golden when you are testing the waters of entrepreneurship, a new role at work, or trying to grow a side project.

But our tendency is to want to act in a big, perfect way when it's better to dream in a big way and act in a small one.

Then we begin to build our creative confidence. When we have an experimental attitude, we're less attached to the results.

So even if you're at your full time job, how might you be less precious about what you want to put out into the world? Comment below in this post.

Today’s episode features writer, artist, and designer Ash Huang. Her essays have appeared in FastCompany, Offscreen Mag, and Lean Out. Her novel, The Firesteel, won first place in the Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards. An early designer at Twitter and Pinterest, and currently at Adobe, Ash has also been her own boss over the years, giving her unique career insights to share

A year and a half ago, I didn’t know many of my show’s guests. So you might be wondering how I get such incredible women to agree to come onto the show, especially since I did not have direct connections with many of them.

It turns out I reached out to most of them via email, cold. And I get it. It’s easy to feel intimidated. It’s easy to let the anticipation of rejection deter you from going and getting what you want. But I’m here to tell you it is possible to connect with someone who seems beyond your reach. Here are my 7 tips:

1. Start with them, not you

Whenever we reach out to a potential guest, we don’t begin with ourselves. We don’t say “Heroine is a blah blah…,” or “I’m the Executive Producer of blah blah…,” we actually start with their work: “Your article, talk, book, perspective… really caught our eye.”

And then we follow up and let them know who we are.

Take the time to connect what’s most interesting about their work with the reason you’re reaching out.

Example:

Hi Brenda,

The story of Brave is one of my favorite Disney-Pixar movies, which does such a beautiful job of showing the growth that takes place between mother and daughter. It would be an honor to explore some of those themes with you on Heroine, our podcast featuring the journeys of top women in design, arts, tech, and business.

2. Quickly establish credibility

At the end of the day, an influencer (or their assistant) is trying to quickly determine whether you’re legit. They’re getting hundreds if not thousands of emails per day, so they need a quick way to filter. Most of them filter by social proof. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people fail to put their strongest foot forward. They go into a long ramble, gushing about what they admire about the person.

No! Why are you legit? And the great news is that social proof comes in various forms:

Years of experience

Brand-name company

Brand-name school

Number of followers/audience

Awards

Noteworthy collaborators/side projects

Results you've gotten others

Media appearances

You don’t want to list them in bullet form, but you do want to come out of the gate with them—so have it high up and embedded in your intro when you reach out.

Example:

Chelsea came to mind as we feature high caliber women: guests who have landed in headlines at Forbes, TechCrunch, TED, Fast Company, GigaOm, The Wall Street Journal, O, The Oprah Magazine, Refinery29, CreativeMornings, and The Great Discontent.

Since launching, we’ve been consistently featured as one of the top podcasts in the Design category alongside Roman Mars and Debbie Millman.

3. Make it very easy and convenient for them to speak with you

Whenever you’re asking anyone with more power or influence to do something for you, it’s important that you make it extremely easy for them to give you their time and attention. When scheduling, make sure to offer 2 or 3 options a few weeks out, but also let them know that you are more than happy to work around their schedule and convenience. Make it super easy to plug yourself into their lives, not the other way around.

4. Be super cordial to assistants

Assistants and interns are gatekeepers who hold the magical keys to everything else. Take the time and care to be friendly and acknowledge these people who are helping you make an interview happen. We always thank the folks who help us organize interviews, because without them, they literally wouldn’t happen.

5. Anticipate rejection

I like to mention how many amazing women have come onto the show, but you should see my spreadsheet of rejections. We aim ludicrously high. As a result, there’s a great possibility of rejection—in fact, I anticipate a high degree of it. Otherwise, I’m not aiming high enough. Every time we reach out to a celebrity, we toss our heads back and think, mmm… wonder what will happen this time! And then we press send.

6. Send smart follow-ups (for as long as you need to)

My husband, who’s an investor, once told me how he’d followed up with another investor for eight months. Eight months! Every few weeks he would send some kind of correspondence, keeping the conversation going, until finally the guy was able to meet.

This anecdote put things into perspective for me. Here I was afraid to seem “pushy” and “annoying” for one measly follow-up (which is totally a good girl complex issue). Now, the Heroine team follows up with prospects with passion. But we do so intelligently. We don’t just keep following up with the same spiel, hoping for a different response this time.

My advice for every follow-up is: (1) share something valuable, (2) share an exciting update/accomplishment about how badass you continue to be, and/or (3) re-iterate your ask in different words, or from a different angle on why it’s so important that you speak with them. And of course, follow up over multiple months. It took 11 months before we landed an interview with Isabel Allende, and it’s one of the best, most tear-jerking interviews I’ve done to date (coming out this fall as the new season started last week).

7. See them as your peer

So many of us err on the side of politeness, not wanting to “bother” or “burden” other badasses. And it’s completely the wrong mentality.

Instead of creating an automatic power differential between you and influencer, see this badass as a mirror of yourself—yes, as your equal, no matter how large her scope of influence or how incredible her accomplishments. You must see her as a peer, and as a colleague. That’s the only way she’ll respond to you as such.

Example:

Hi Chandra,

Isabel’s book House of Spirits in both English and Spanish (I’m originally from Argentina) inspires me on so many levels.

I would love to ask Isabel about the power of women’s collaboration and sisterhood on her own creative work. Intuitively, I feel there’s a lot of alignment, which is why we reached out and continue to persist months later.

Conclusion

There you have it—my 7 tips for reaching out to top influencers you admire. Start with their work but establish your credibility, too. Make it simple, be polite, and don’t be afraid of rejection. Follow up intelligently, and remember: you’re a badass reaching out to another badass.

Does this work every time? Absolutely not, but you would be surprised how far these tips can get you (and you have to start somewhere). Connecting with more “reachable” influencers at first can help you build up your network and credibility, making it easier for you to reach higher influencers and heavier hitters later on.

But don’t be afraid to put yourself on the line and reach out cold to your biggest creative idols. The worst that can happen is a polite rejection, while the best that can happen is more than worth the effort.

A few months ago our host Majo attended a live conversation attheWomen’s Building between SF-based activist Lateefah Simon and Gloria Steinem, who became nationally recognized as a leader and spokeswoman for the feminist movement in the late 60s and early 70s. She’s been an inspiration to generations of women who want to live life on their own terms.

Here’s my challenge to you today, this week, this month: Let people know how you feel. Part of being a Good Girl means avoiding confrontation at all costs. This kind of behavior results in being passive aggressive instead of direct, vulnerable, and honest about how something makes you feel – whether it’s with work colleagues, managers, partners, or friends. Of course, these conversations are difficult but they’re all part of being a Creative Leader. When asking Eileen Fisher on Heroine what she’s learned over the years of building her fashion empire – she stated simply, “to lean into difficult conversations.” How else are you going to grow and how else will your relationships flourish? I’m suspicious of overly harmonious relationships that have no tension or friction for years and years and years – that usually means someone is sitting on a big pile of bitter.

The Good Girl stays quiet and feels resentful. She lashes out in passive ways like gossiping, erratic behavior, and avoiding others. The Creative Leader, on the other hand, becomes aware that something is triggering her and lets it be known – with courage and strength.

A great framework for this I keep coming back to (and teaching all my clients) is called non-violent communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg. What I like about this tool is that it invites you to take full responsibility instead of judging and blaming others. Now, while all of us can’t be perfect and surely make mistakes, like getting defensive and offensive in difficult conversations, this is a great step-by-step rubric and template that can help you feel more grounded.

Here are the steps (and I’ve included examples below). This is perfect if you’ve recently felt triggered by a situation. Don’t let it fester for months or years – clear the air as soon as possible. I like to say, nip it in the bud. Most conflict builds up over time. When we leave things uncleared, we create a story about the other person, such as “He's just not a reliable person.” And then everything that person does from that point forward is seen through the lens of flakiness, which of course becomes confirmed. He forgets to call you back one time – Well that’s because he’s flaky! (meanwhile, the reality is that one of his parents is ill, or his dog just died...) And so on and so forth. So we can see how all human conflict arises from the basic lack of communication, story-making, and misalignments.

But there are ways to make it better and it includes a degree of courage and vulnerability – the ability to sit with the discomfort of telling someone, to their face, that something has bothered you.

#1 – State the fact

Oftentimes what we think are facts aren’t actually facts, but statements full of judgement and our subjectivity. State a fact that the other person couldn’t disagree with – as in you’d both agree that happened. For example: “Yesterday, you turned off the television before the show ended.” That is a fact. Watch out for sneaky words that imply judgement, such as, “Yesterday, you turned the television off while I was in the middle of watching my show.”

In this case, “before the show ended” is far more objective than “in the middle of watching my show,” which implies an unwanted interruption. Keep the facts devoid of emotion or judgement – non-arguable and specific. That’s the first step – state what actually happened. Another Rosenberg quote I love: “When we combine observation with evaluation, people are apt to hear criticism…Observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence.” I couldn’t agree more.

#2 - State how you felt

(Note: not how someone made you feel)

Most of us begin to blame here with the classic “I felt like you were doing what you wanted, which was to go get dinner.” Or “I felt like you completely ignored the fact that I was watching my show.” Beware of the “I felt like.” Instead, take full ownership by stating the emotion and feeling you felt without assuming the other person caused you to feel anything. Someone could do the exact same thing to someone else and they might feel completely differently about it – maybe not even care. Here’s the radical idea: Other people don’t make you feel any way – you are 100% responsible for how you feel. To quote Rosenberg again, "What others say and do may be the stimulus, but never the cause, of our feelings."

And remember from Pixar’s animated movie Inside Out that all feelings really stem from these big basic five: sadness, anger, disgust, joy, and fear. Your feeling is most likely a variation of one of these:

I felt annoyed, ticked off = anger

I felt turned off, repelled = disgust

I felt grief-stricken, depressed, heartbroken = sad

I felt nervous, anxious, frightened = fear

Back to the TV example, “After you turned off the television before the show ended, I felt annoyed.” See the difference?

#3 - Identify the underlying unmet need

Needs. We all have them. They’re universal. Sometimes if we’re brought up to be too good or nice, we’re shy about identifying our needs and in turn, we struggle asking others for what we need. Again, this leads to bitterness and resentment and it doesn’t serve anyone. There is nothing wrong with having needs, and it’s important to connect and articulate them to others in all our relationships – from friendships to lovers to co-workers. In this step, we acknowledge the root of our feelings. Continuing the example above: “After you turned off the television before the show ended, I felt angry because I need open communication.”

#4 – Make a request

Don’t be lofty and too high-level here – go specific. Don’t ask: “Can you be fully transparent in the workplace?” What are the specific actions associated with full transparency? For example, “Can you please email me before you circulate my notes?” “Can you please include my name on the slidedeck when presenting to the Vice President?”

What I like about this step is that you put the request out there, and the other person has the complete freedom to accept, turn it down, or counter offer. Finishing the example I’ve included throughout this article: “After you turned off the television before the show ended, I felt angry because I need to feel open communication. Instead of turning off the television, could you tell me how you’re feeling?”

So, circling back to my challenge. Can you think of someone you need to clear the air with? Again, it amazes me how we sit on these grudges for weeks, months, and years, all the while forming stories about people. That needs to stop. It’s time to pull up our big girl panties and tell people how we really feel about what happened, while taking full ownership and responsibility for our emotions.

Making a request may feel difficult, but you’ll be amazed at how people respond. So many of my clients have made requests they never dreamed were possible. The people they’ve “confronted” have gladly accepted, because the person did not feel judged or blamed.

I had one client recently tell me that when people confronted her, she felt like she was being "scolded" (years of Catholic confessions and her mother's parenting style). And so she avoided it. In our session, we reframed "confrontation" as an opportunity for one or two people to give each other feedback and make requests. And it can be bi-directional. If someone confronts you, you can take some time to process and then request another container to give them feedback (if you can't do it on the fly). All healthy relationships need some degree of friction to grow – it's natural.

Lots of love and enjoy the moonlight,

Majo

P.S. I'm really excited to announce that I'm writing a book on this subject. It aims to support women in overcoming their conditioning to unleash their creative power. I can't wait to share it with you. More soon!

Kristy Tillman was the Design Director at Society of Grownups and a designer at IDEO in Boston before making her way up to become the Head of Communication Design at Slack, a messaging tool for teams. This is a recent position for Kristy, who is real and honest about being “in process.” Her insights on building strong and diverse teams are powerful, especially if you’re considering becoming a manager.

The world of work has seen a lot of change in recent years, and it can be tough to keep up. What do these changes mean for your career and leadership? Alex Cavoulacos breaks it down and shares her career expertise in today’s episode. Named one of INC’s 15 women to watch in tech and Forbes 30 under 30, Alex is co-founder and COO of TheMuse.com, a career platform and community helping people find inspiring careers.

Last year, Veronica Belmont hosted HBO’s Red Carpet Premiere for Game of Thrones. But after spending ten years as an online media personality, she decided to leave the world of video behind her and become a product manager.

Many women come to me because their day jobs don’t feel creative or meaningful enough. They spend quite a bit of time on production, tech, management, or analytical thinking. They have a passion for art, women’s issues, wellness, travel, culture, nature, something besides the way they make money right now. Their true passions, however, feel impractical...like they could never pay rent.

If you’re in this situation, you’re really lucky. A paycheck gives you the mental security blanket to create in peace. It’s an exciting time – something I like to call “the liminal space.” The key is to resist your desire to come home after work and numb yourself.

In my experience working with hundreds of women, the kind of after-work exhaustion that leads to numbing comes from Good Girl programming: the inability to say “no,” overworking, controlling, proving, and scarcity-driven behaviors. When you spend so much time being “unchill” at work, no wonder you want to come home and splatter yourself on the couch and just “chill.” The pendulum swings in the other direction! The reason you don’t create has nothing to do with a lack of time, but your own resistance and Good Girl tendencies.

You, my dear, might be in this tender liminal space and feeling a bit stuck. You know you have to work to pay the bills, but you crave change and bravery. Something more. Some fresh air.

I want to share with you the three phases I take every client through to some degree to build creative confidence and get creating outside of their job. I’ll also share the Good Girl blocks specifically associated with each phase. This is new content I’ve never shared before. Fresh off the boat!

Ready?

Phase I: Express

In the first phase, a woman must begin creating without being “precious” about her work. She must let go of the idea that she is somehow being bad by creating, that she should be spending her time doing something more practical. She must set healthy boundaries at work so she can protect her energy and rituals. She must definitely not get on Instagram and go down a comparison spiral (unless she is going to deliberately take someone else’s work as inspiration and build on it in her own way).

Good Girl Blocks

Perfectionism

Comparison

Lack of Boundaries

Low Energy

Guilt of Pleasure

Phase II: Show

In this phase, a woman no longer hides behind closed doors, but begins to show her work. For some women who went to design or art school, showing your work might be associated with critiques. But we’re not in school anymore, we’re in life. You let go of the desire to be perfect and show yourself as messy and figuring it out like the rest of the world. You celebrate mistakes. You overcome your fear of judgment and whether your friends from high school will think it’s random that you’re making abstract yarn paintings. This is a wonderful phase where you learn who most resonates with your work, and who least resonates too!

Good Girl Blocks

Fear of judgment

Fear of being messy or “wrong”

Personalizing feedback

Approval-seeking

Phase III: Exchange

After a woman has granted herself permission to create and show her work, there’s the option to go deeper. In the exchange phase, she offers her creative work to someone in exchange for some kind of value – time, money, skills, or other creative work. Many women can get stuck here – especially if they feel like trading or selling their creativity is sleazy. They fear it’s not good enough and that nobody will want it even before offering it! I think of trading as “training wheels” when women can’t leap to selling, since selling can feel too uncomfortable and the inner Good Girl hates it. But I can’t even describe the first day someone paid me for coaching. It was the first money I earned that didn’t come from some authority figure like a parent, boss or employer, but came from me giving value to someone directly. One of the most empowering days of my life. And it didn’t even matter that it was only $25.

Good Girl Blocks

Fear of rejection

Following the Rules

Attachment to outcomes

Lack of Worthiness and Value

Scarcity Mentality

Guilt of Money

Reply and let me know:

What phase are you in? (Note: different creative projects may be in different phases).

Would you be interested on going through these phases with my guidance and a supportive community?

I’m playing with the idea of designing a creative confidence training specifically for women who work full time. We would overcome the Good Girl blocks above by moving through the phases and taking action together.

After I gave a recent talk on women’s creative leadership, a woman in the audience shared that she felt no room to cry at work without being labeled as “the emotional one.” In the same vein, one of my coaching clients asked me whether she should put on her “mask” when she felt overwhelmed at work.

It saddens me that women are still asking these questions. But alas, we live and work in a culture that has a complicated relationship to feelings. Feelings, especially negative ones, have become the enemy of action and action is required to meet business goals.

In my work with women creative leaders, I’ve learned that emotional safety is especially key to a woman’s growth at work. As dangerously stereotypical as it sounds: If you want to retain creative women at your company, you must accept and even welcome the expression of feelings. For most women, feelings are a bio-socio-psychological reality and the price of compartmentalizing or suppressing them is very high.

In a larger sense, this is about being able to show up as your whole, authentic self to work. In my interview with former Design Director at IDEO Andrea Mallard on the Heroine podcast, she stressed the importance of being cared for as an entire human being:

I had this one client that wasn’t a big fan of me and there was nothing I could do to fix this...I fully expected that I would get in big trouble...I remember [Chief Creative Officer] Paul saying, ‘you are worth more to us than this client is…’ [I learned that] this is a company that cares about me as an entire human being and sees my value...that built so much trust and such a strong desire to do the best work of my life there.

As long as work cultures don’t foster emotional safety, I predict women – especially highly creative women – will be the first to go. I’m not saying your company should replace the role of therapy or coaching, but I am saying that the current emphasis is far too much on action and results, and far too little on feelings and process. You may be more productive in the short term, but you’ll lose creative talent in the long run.

What do you think?

xo

Majo

This piece was originally featured in 99U's Magazine – Winter 2017 Issue